1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to circuit board electrical connectors and, especially, to multicontact connectors to be mounted on a circuit board with predetermined intervals.
2. Description of the Related Art
As electronic equipment becomes complicated, the number of contact elements in electrical connectors increases. As a result, the number of contact elements in conventional multicontact connectors can be too small or, even when the number of contact elements is satisfactory, the connector can be too long in a given space, forcing the use of a plurality of shorter multicontact connectors. Sometimes, a plurality of multicontact connectors are mounted on two circuit boards to connect these circuit boards together. In such a case, it is necessary that the relative positions of the multicontact connectors on the respective circuit boards match each other. To achieve this very difficult goal, it has been proposed to use a circuit board connector 50 as shown in FIG. 13, which includes two multicontact connector sections 51 and 52 and linking sections 53 and 54 for coupling them with Et predetermined interval. Such a female type connector 50 is mounted on a circuit board while a similar but male type connector is mounted on another circuit board to connect: these two circuit boards together.
The circuit board connector wherein a plurality of multicontact connectors are integrated with linking sections requires a special metal mold, which is very expensive.
When it is required to mount electronic components on a circuit board with high density, the conventional connector 50 blocks electronic components from being mounted on the areas covered by the linking sections 53 and 54, thus failing to meet the high density mounting requirement.
When the interval between multicontact connectors 51 and 52 is changed or when the number of contact elements in one connector is different from that of the other, it is necessary to make a new metal mold for each design change.